


purple like a bruised peach

by orphan_account



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Anal Sex, Established Relationship, Injured Sex, M/M, i think that's it there's just a lot of talk about colors and bulgaria, set after the film but not a post-film coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:12:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eames’ hands are hot on Arthur’s hips. He’s hot inside him, too, his hair soft between Arthur’s fingers, the windowpane cool against the back of Arthur’s wrists. Arthur feels like he’s daydreaming - everything soft and slow and faintly tinted blue, everything easy. Behind Eames, the sky is purple like a bruised peach, rooftops black.-Eames gets shot in Bulgaria, and then they fuck.





	

Bulgaria is Bulgaria. It can be warm and orange and grandmotherly, and it can be cold and detached and harsh. Eames gets shot on a side street in December, as the second snowstorm of the year is blowing in from Macedonia.

Their extractor gets out. Eames and Arthur don’t. Neither does Ariadne.

-

Eames is at a Christmas market trying to blend in with the locals when he gets shot. At least three people see, and all three quickly turn away. The shooter - a hired gun, someone making too much money off of too risky kills, expending bullets like one pence coins - spits at Eames before he walks away. It lands on Eames’ thigh, a few inches from his hip, making a strange, ink-blot stain.

 _Ah,_ Eames thinks a moment later, when he realizes he’s focused on the spit instead of the blood steadily draining from his stomach. _Shock_.

He calls Arthur, but he really doesn’t need to: Arthur shows up fast enough that he had to be moving before that anyway. He scoops Eames out of the alley, quick and efficient, murmuring to him in Shanghainese. It’s a language both of them speak but few other non-Chinese do. It makes Eames think of xialongbao and street stalls and container ships belching smoke like frozen breath over the river; the feel of expensive hotel carpet beneath his fingers, Arthur’s cufflinks discarded on the hallway floor, and he's drifting again. He doesn’t catch much of what Arthur says, because the shock is making his hands go numb and his hearing seems to be shorting out, but he does hear _set-up,_ and he does hear _fake,_ and he does get a glimpse of Ariadne standing behind Arthur, looking confused and uncertain with a too-big gun in her delicate artist’s hands.

 _Oh,_ Eames thinks, or maybe says aloud. _Of course._

He doesn’t remember passing out, but he doesn’t remember walking anywhere either; one moment, he’s stumbling down the sidewalk on Arthur’s shoulder, the warmth of Arthur’s voice like hot water on frostbite, and the next moment, everything is warm.

-

The bedroom is quiet when Arthur steps into it, not even a creak from the rotting wood floors. He’d think it’s romantic - as if they, too, were trying to be quiet, the softly falling snow and Eames sleeping face a delicacy not even inanimate objects can bring themselves to break - but Arthur’s not nearly so naive.

He takes the next step with deliberate force, banging the heel of his boot against the wood floor. Eames stirs, but doesn’t wake. He’s backlit by a window looking out on the street, but you can barely tell: his skin is pale and flaky, like too-dry cotton sheets in winter.

“Eames,” Arthur says. He thinks of Ariadne one room over, a quiet number in a box. “Eames,” he tries again. Nothing - not even a flicker of eyelids.

“You’re a good actor, but not that good,” he says, stepping up beside the bed to look out the window. The sky is half-glazed and grey, and the whole street has taken on its colorless pallor. There are a few men in thick parkas parked on front stoops, but the street stalls selling bread and baked hazelnuts are long-closed. _Winter_ , Arthur thinks.

“Have you considered, darling,” Eames says, voice rasping, “that maybe I just want a bit of a lie in?”

Arthur glances down at him. His eyes are still closed, but as he watches, they creak open, almost ruefully. They’re brighter now than they were when he was bleeding out in the alley.

“You have all week to lie in,” Arthur points out. "It's not like we can get anywhere in this weather."

Eames hums, almost like he’s agreeing. He seems tired, or maybe just bored, his eyelids already flickering shut. “We’d be stuck here a few days even without the snow,” he says, and Arthur feels the frosty blood on his fingers.

“Regardless, then,” he says, leaning against the window frame. It’s white and sticky, like it’s just been painted.

“Have you taken out a hit yet?” Eames asks. His eyelashes are like blankets drifting on a clothesline.

“No,” Arthur says. “Not yet.”

Slowly, like he can't quite muster the energy to move normally, Eames reaches out and takes Arthur’s wrist in his hand. Eames looks pale but his palms are warm, sharp against Arthur's skin.

“Tired?” Eames asks, brushing his thumb over Arthur’s palm.

“A bit,” Arthur says. He’s exhausted. He doesn't trust Ariadne, so he hasn't slept and the nights seem inordinately long in this country, in this apartment, with Eames quiet on the bed, the cold absorbing all the noise.

“Get under the covers,” Eames says, pulling the edge of the blanket back. It's very tempting - the triangle of warmth, Eames and the last of the light.

“Watch your stitches,” Arthur says, and frees his wrist from Eames so he can pull off his pants. Eames shifts over when Arthur crawls under the covers, and Arthur makes a space for himself by Eames’ side, curving like a parentheses of a person.

“I missed you, darling,” Eames says, and Arthur hums, leans over to press a kiss into Eames’ shoulder. Eames doesn't make sense, but Arthur doesn’t care; he feels weighted and relaxed, and he’s getting hard against Eames’ leg, warmth and human contact swallowing a tired ache.

“Want something, darling?” Eames asks a moment later, and Arthur knows he’s felt it.

“It’s fine,” Arthur says, not moving. “You’re hurt.”

“I could be persuaded,” Eames says, and reaches over to rub circles into the skin of Arthur’s upper thigh.

Arthur sighs, easy. “You can’t move,” he says.

“Of course not,” Eames says. “I’m too knackered to be doing acrobatics.”

Arthur smiles, turning to face Eames. “So I’ll be doing all the work, then,” he says.

Eames smiles. His teeth look worn. “When don’t you, darling?”

Arthur pulls himself off of the mattress and turns to straddle Eames, one knee to each hip. Eames' hands settle low on Arthur's waist, stretching across his belly. Arthur’s skin pools between Eames' fingers, like melting snow.

Arthur reaches down to give Eames a few strokes through his underwear: light, at first, through the fabric, barely a touch, like pickpocketing, and then Eames groans in the back of his throat, says, "Come on, darling," and Arthur pulls them down to his knees.

He gives Eames two more good strokes before reaching for the beside table. There’s not much there - a bible, a broken alarm clock - and there's no lube, but there is a bottle of thick yellow hand lotion, and Arthur uses it to slick up his fingers. He opens himself slowly, gently, head tipped back. Eames tightens his his grip around Arthur's waist, not bothering to touch himself, like just this is enough. 

The moment stretches, long and identical, like a single second that has somehow surpassed its own definition.

When Eames finally lets go of Arthur's waist to palm himself, Arthur feels it rather than sees it, his eyes closed but the mattress quivering. For a moment longer, Arthur doesn't move; then the lotion starts to drip onto the sheets, and he pulls his fingers out, opening his eyes and shifting towards Eames instead.

“Ready, darling?” Eames asks, when he sees Arthur has stopped. He’s hard, waiting. Arthur strokes him once, and when Eames closes his eyes, lines up over him.

“Ready,” Arthur murmurs, and sinks down on him. Eames moans immediately, tightening his grip on Arthur. One hand migrates down to grip Arthur's thigh.

“Jesus, darling, you’re so…” He trails off, so Arthur just hums in response, moving his hips slowly. Eames has his eyes closed and his neck tipped back; the line of his throat seems very red, in this light. Outside the window, something makes a loud noise - a train, or a car horn - and there’s a flutter, like wings from a branch. Someone shouts something in Turkish. Arthur moves his hips, like a dance.

“How’s your side?” Arthur asks after a moment. He’s moving slowly, but he can see the skin at Eames’ side stretching around the patch of gauze, the tug of it.

“My side is fine, darling,” Eames says a bit breathlessly. “Don’t stop.”

“I wasn’t going to stop,” Arthur tells him, which is true, and isn’t. He presses his palm more firmly against the windowpane, trying to get balanced. He takes a breath, closes his eyes.

Eames’ hands are hot on Arthur’s hips. He’s hot inside him, too, his hair soft between Arthur’s fingers, the windowpane cool against the back of Arthur’s wrists. Arthur feels like he’s daydreaming - everything soft and slow and faintly tinted blue, everything easy. Behind Eames, the sky is purple like a bruised peach, rooftops black.

“Darling,” Eames manages, his fingers tightening infinitesimally around Arthur’s skin, and then he’s coming. Arthur feels it, inside him: Eames, and the scratchy bedsheets, and the cold on his back, the ache in his knees. Eames makes a cut off noise in the back of his throat, and Arthur comes too.

For a moment, neither of them move. Arthur opens his eyes slowly, noticing the fog on the window from the heat of their bodies. His hand slips down, falling off the glass to land on Eames’ back. It’s sweat-sticky, but he doesn’t mind.

“I want tea, now,” Eames says a minute later. Arthur smiles, doesn’t try to hide it. He brushes his thumb across Eames’ cheek.

“Okay,” he says, and doesn’t move.

-

(He doesn’t bother with boxers, just throws on sweatpants and socks. It’s cold in the loft, but he couldn’t find his t-shirt - somewhere under Eames, probably. He doesn’t forget about Ariadne, but he finds he doesn’t much care.

She’s sitting on the flannel couch watching quiet Parisian television when he slips out into the living room. She doesn’t quite do a double-take, but she’s very clearly confused. “Arthur,” she says, and Arthur wonders if she’s thinking about that kiss on the second layer of the Fischer job, the two of them on the couch, the target of attention as Eames hid in plain sight. _Distraction._

“Ariadne,” he says, and steps into the kitchen, starts the tea pot boiling.

He thinks she might leave it at that, but a moment later she appears at the doorway. She leans against its frame, considering him. There are red marks on his waist, he knows. “How’s Eames?” she says eventually, her tone fragmented like she isn’t sure what to say.

“Better,” Arthur says. Ariadne worries her fingers in the loops of her jeans. Arthur waits.

"Good," Ariadne says finally. "I'm glad."

Arthur hums, stirring sugar into Eames' tea.)

**Author's Note:**

> obviously this is fiction please do not fuck someone with bullet wounds and do not let someone fuck you when you have bullet wounds, just try to separate fucking and bullet wounds please
> 
> criticism always appreciated!


End file.
